Meiosis: Cellular Reproduction

a.) Meiosis is a type of cellular reproduction where haploid cells are produced from diploid cells in a process of gene shuffling. Recombination is when two homologous chromosomes swap some of their genes locus by locus.

b.) The cost to meiosis is that the parents each only pass on half of their DNA to their offspring, where sexual reproducers pass all of their genes on to their offspring. Then the cost of recombination is that during the process already fit genotypes are being broken up.

c.) The cost of mating is another cost to sexual reproduction. The cost of mating says that the two sexual reproducers are vulnerable to predators during copulation and this is a cost asexual reproducers don’t face.

2.) This is a similar explanation for sexual reproduction, but it doesn’t acknowledge the diminishing returns. After about 3 generations the harmful mutations are gone and sexual reproduction isn’t necessary any more.

3

b.) The offspring

c.) No, it only explains the strategy for all r selected organisms that reproduce many offspring, but not for k selected organisms such as mammals.

4

a.) The benefit is that for K selected organisms sexual reproduction is a way for them to combat the rapid reproduction and adaptations of parasites.

b.) The K selected organisms.

c.) Yes, because parents not only pass on their genes but their parasites too so any diversity that might help them survive is good.

5

a.) Males have the smaller sized gametes in large amounts, and females have the large sized gametes in lesser amounts.

b.) They evolved because of competition. When there’s a completion, it favors specialization and instead of there being an averaged sized gamete in an average quantity in the population, specialization favored many small gametes and few large gametes.

6

a.) It’s an organism that can reproduce with both